The document discusses the importance of the therapeutic alliance between counselor and client. Research shows the strength of this relationship is one of the strongest predictors of client outcomes. Carl Rogers' person-centered counseling emphasizes empathy, unconditional positive regard, and congruence as necessary conditions for change. Additional guidelines for building a positive alliance include shared treatment goals and process, supporting the client's decision to seek help, discussing expectations, monitoring the relationship, providing appropriate feedback, limited self-disclosure, and managing countertransference. Characteristics of successful clients include motivation, low defensiveness, belief in treatment, role induction, full participation, and perceiving personal strengths. Therapists should promote a strengths-based perspective and provide a safe environment

1. Counsellor-Counselee
Relationship

2. Therapeutic
Alliance/
Relationship
Research indicated that the strength of the
therapeutic allianceis one of the most powerful
predictors of client outcome regardless of the
therapist’s theoretical orientation(Norcross, 2010).
Carl Rogers’s person centered counselling
emphasizes the importance of essential therapist
characteristics that he believed would promote
client self-esteem and self efficacy.
Empathy, unconditional positive regard and
congruence are the necessary conditions in which
change could occur.

3. Guidelines of building and
maintaining a Positive
Therapeutic Alliance
Apart from, elements such as , empathy, unconditional
positive regard and congruence, there are some
additional proceduresand interventions that can
promote the development of a positive therapeutic
alliance:
1. Shared understanding of goals and process
of treatment:Facilitate the client’s efforts to
begin treatment by establishing a
collaborative relationship.
2. Support the client’s decision to seek
treatment by discussing the importance of
taking a first step and the courage that is
involved in seeking help.
3. Discuss the clients’ expectations for
treatment and encourage realistic hope for
positive change

4. Guidelines of building and
maintaining a Positive
Therapeutic Alliance
4. Therapists need to monitor relationship to solicit client’s opinion on
how treatment is going for them and to discuss strains in the relationship
before they become permanent tears
5. Appropriate Feedback should be provided on clients behaviour or the
effect of that behaviour in a positive manner. Carefully proceed with
clients having depression issues or who may process feedback in a
negative manner.
6. Self disclosures convey genuiness. But Be careful, however not to
focus too much on your own selfor share very personal material.
7. Engaging clients with activities that are manageable, and helpful to
engender both sense of empowerment in the client and confidence in the
treatment.
8. Therapist’s feelings of countertransference can be managed by using
empathy, self-insight, managing their own anxiety, self integration and
using their conceptualising ability. Those who need additional help
should address the issue in supervision or seek their own therapy.

5. Characteristics
of Successful
clients
“It is the clients who make the therapy work” (Bohart & Tallman, 2010)
The pre-treatment characteristics and those qualities that clients manifest
in treatment have a strong impact on outcome.
• Motivation:
• willingness to self disclose, confront problems, put forth effort to change
and if necessary, experience some temporary anxiety and discomfort in the
hope of eventual benefit.
• Low levels of defensiveness and a belief that treatment is necessary and
important
• Self referred clients are less likely to terminate treatment prematurely that
are clients referred by others.
• Positive but realistic expectations for treatment:
• Belief that the therapy has something positive to offer and at the end they
will get better
• Role Induction: It the process of orienting people to treatment so they are
more likely to become successful clients who understand and can make
good use of the therapeutic process., informing the client of what to expect
from the therapy can have increased understanding of the treatment
• Full participation in treatment: Clients who do better in
psychotherapy and maintain treatment gains believe that the changes
made in therapy were primarily a result of their own efforts. They feel
empowered and ready to work more towards their growth.

6. Characteristics
of Successful
clients
For the therapist to KNOW –
Clients’ strengths, resources and capacity for self-agency,
• successful therapists work to promote a strengths-based
perspective from the very beginning of the first session
Clients who perceive they are functioning well are more likely
to transcend diagnoses or descropitions of pathology and less
likely to end treatment prematurely (Duncan, Miller. Et.al. ,
2010)
• Therapists should believe that the clients are motivated and
capable of change and use that belief to istill hope and
optimism during the treatment process
• Therapists should promote client involvement by providing
an atmosphere in which clients feel safe discussing difficult
feelings and trying out new ideas.